I made conscious decisions to leave value with both Bitfinex and BTC-e.. .. and there were times in which I changed my mind about how much BTC I was keeping with various third parties, and also coming to find out about how easy sim attacks make people vulnerable .. and they are still going on now... but in 2017, they were less common, but I probably should have realized a bit better regarding the sim swap attack vector.. .. so then if something like that ends up happening, there are ways to change some approaches in order to make funds less vulnerable to that attack vehicle, even though, sometimes, some funds might still be vulnerable through other attack mechanism.
We all make mistakes and put trust in things, in which we should not. I was not aware of the sim swap attack (basically from the term) but it really is scary, that someone could steal your phone number, but I am curious how a scammer would do that because to do that, a scammer would need some basic information. For example, In our country, when we have to change the number of one sim to another sim or to another number, it is compulsory for the real owner of the sim to be present at the franchise, (we cannot do that from home) and there we have to verify our fingerprints and then we are given the new sim with the same or new number (that depends on our need). I don't know how things work on your side, but I would love to know.
I did search about SIM swap attacks and how we can avoid them, what I found is:
- Use of multi-signature wallet
- hardware wallet
- not making accounts on phone numbers
And talking about other attacks, like hacking attempts i.e., phishing links etc, that's what you are talking about?
Some losses are BIGGER than others, and frequently there are ways to protect yourself even when taking risks, but one of the things about risks is that we don't always realize some of the risks that we are taking or we assign the wrong values and might end up with losses from which are more difficult to recover... financially and/or psychologically...
You are damn right, we take risk, and we don't even have idea that we are taking one, the best example I am seeing in current time is, many new investors of BTC, are investing in BTC and saying that they will make profit for sure as they think halving is coming and their funds will be doubled or tripled. But what I think is, they are ignoring the risk factor it has. Market's history is so obvious that, anyone would be convinced that market will go up but nobody sees at the risk side. I think they should realize it before it is too late for them.
There are a lot of ways that people go through and deal with losses, and surely if all of the value was ONLY in BTC, then there might be more devastation.. but if the person had various other non-btc investments (such as stocks, properties, bonds and cash) that might have had been equal to 20 or 30 BTC at the time that s/he lost the 20 BTC, then there still is a nestegg of value in some other location.. so the loss in terms of half of the BTC portfolio might seem large in the short term, but there are various other reserve assets in other places... so such loss is not totally devastating.. only partially devastating..
You are talking about diversification, and I agree with you on this, I have read about diversification strategy to minimize the risk in making investments and also aware of its perks. I sometimes, think, a person who is in BTC, might not have enough funds to make investments in other types, but what solution I have is, to keep that extra amount in cash, because, like you said those who will have all of their capital and savings in BTC, have to face devastation. So, a person should know the difference between capital and savings and they should at least keep their savings in the form of fiat. What do you think?
one of the funny things about bitcoin (or maybe any other greatly appreciating asset, that sometimes very large mistakes can be made, but mostly HODLers/accumulators still can end up making money, even if they might have made less money from their mistakes, they still can end up making money in some kinds of scenarios, as long as they don't get totally reckt, and this case, holding onto half of the BTC was part of the explanation for the devastation not being as bad as it could have had been.
Agreed.
I surely am not of the perspective that anyone should be waiting... but instead if such person does not have an emergency fund in place and does not have very many back up resources, then s/he can still invest into bitcoin, but just take a smaller position size while s/he is working on shoring up various ways to draw from emergency funds.
Agreed, because many people do wait and totally depends on the investments, they have made in BTC like they think they would become millionaire overnight. The reality is a man has to push harder and break the limits he has set for himself. In simple words, we should not remain in our comfort zone, and should take risks and not depend on that risk only but we should work on other opportunities. Really mate you have an entrepreneurial mindset, like those financial motivators on TikTok (I hope you won't mind TikTok
as many people hate when someone compares them with TikTok stars) or on any social media platform. Trying hard to motivate new generations.
so maybe instead of investing $100 per week into bitcoin, you only invest $10 per wee into bitcoin and use the other $90 per week to get your other shit together.. and so maybe it takes you 1-2 years before you can get your shit together sufficiently enough that you can move your weekly investment size up to $100 per week, but in the meantime, you had been investing $10 per week while you were putting in order other aspects of your financial and psychological life.
But there is one more side of this, for example, a person is losing shit, have enough money to feed himself and the family, or whatever other basic needs he has to fill, after that, if that person not able to safe funds or able to safe funds, one thing came up to his/her mind. And that is skepticism, they just don't want to take risk and want to leave that circle that they draw around themselves. I hope you are getting my point here. And this happens due to the doubt, ambiguity and fear in their minds and hearts, they know they might not bear the risk's results.
So, I think that it is better to error on the side of getting started bitcoin sooner rather than later, even if you have various messes in your life that you simultaneously having to actively work upon.
Sorry to cause so much work upon you.... hahahahaha.....yeah.. sometimes there are no real needs to respond further.
nah, that's actually not that much work for me to read your posts, instead it is kind of good, and while reading and writing to you, I don't keep track of time, and once I finished writing to you then I think, I spend this much time (just to clarify, I actually not spend that much time like hours). Like, now, I am still replying late, but this time the reason was work, and the tiredness of work. But today I was free so I thought I should reply you, it's not that I was not making posts, I was, but to read your replies, I have to be on laptop, because on laptop, it becomes easy to edit the reply.